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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Jerks, Genea-Karma, Donuts & Dreams

About six months ago I received a
request to photograph a tombstone located in a small cemetery near my
neighborhood. I, of course, looked up the cemetery because I’d never heard of
it and I’d driven right by there to take my son to basketball practice and I
didn’t remember seeing a cemetery.

I found a four page transcription of
the tombstones in the cemetery online, quickly found my dude, Mr. Gressett [who
had the same last name as my college roommate at Texas A&M University,
and I fleetingly wondered if they were related], and put my graving outfit on
[What? You don’t have an outfit for graving?]

I thought to myself, “This shouldn’t
be too bad. It’s a small cemetery.” I also thought I’d photograph all of it if
it was indeed small. After all, I already had the transcription spreadsheet in
hand. What could go wrong, right?

When I will learn not to ask myself
that question I’ll never know. Anywho, I
went and searched for it. Drove right past it. [Of course] Turned around and
slowed down at the empty overgrown lot that had a few trees.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” [Yeah.
I talk to myself in the car. And in my office.]

I parked and thanked God I’d put my
graving outfit on –jeans, long-sleeved shirt, and Timberland boots. I quickly
found the tombstone to fulfill the request, then started taking photos of each
tombstone, methodically going through the spreadsheet and checking the peeps
off.

To my dismay, though, I found something
kind of odd. There were tombstone transcriptions listed for some tombstones
that I couldn’t find, and these were spouses of ones already there. Likewise, there
were tombstones in the cemetery that did not appear on the list, and they weren’t
new. And you want to know why? Well, I can tell you one thing. It’s not that
these ancestors [not mine, someone else’s] were playing hide-and-go-seek.

Perhaps the person who transcribed the
cemetery had been distracted. Perhaps the grass and weeds had grown over some
of the tombstones. And perhaps overgrown
grass and weeds were the source of my problem now. Or perhaps the cemetery was haunted. Who knows? But most of the
tombstones were old with a Civil War Confederate soldier buried there as well.
Some of the older tombstones were becoming smooth with their names and vitals
being worn away by time and weather.

Now, if I’d been looking for one of those
overgrown tombstones, I would’ve been out of luck because I don’t have x-ray
vision. But what if there was a way to capture a tombstone’s exact whereabouts
so that later on, even if it became overgrown with weeds, even if the
inscription wore away, and even if the cemetery where it’s located looks like
an overgrown abandoned lot as you drive by it?

Well, there is a way now.
RestingSpot.com launched an app for the iPhone this past August and more
recently for the Android that, with a click, can capture the GPS coordinates of a
tombstone, can capture the name of the cemetery, prompts you to enter in the
tombstone information, and allows you to upload the information and a photo of
the tombstone to their searchable free website. Did graving just get easier? [Um,
yeah.]

However, there is a stipulation. You
have to be at the cemetery to create a memorial. After all, the whole reason it
was designed is because the co-founder of RestingSpot.com, Brett Atlas, could
not find his grandfather’s tombstone even though he’d been there before and he
had a map. [And all gravers have been in that situation before, right? Frustrating.] So the whole
point of this app is to record the GPS coordinates for the tombstone so that
anyone can find it later no matter what, and you have to be there to do that with your handy dandy Smartphone.

Let me ask you gravers out there
something. How many of you have gone to a cemetery with your digital camera and
with the very best of genea-intentions photographed a whole bunch of tombstones, and
then “life” happened and 3 months later you’re finally sitting down to upload
those photos, and you can’t quite read a few of them? And since you can’t even
remember what you ate for breakfast yesterday, you know darn good and well
there’s no way you’re gonna be able to remember reading that tombstone. So now
you’re looking at a digital photo on your computer and you can’t figure out if that
mark, if it is indeed a mark, is a “C” or a “D”. I mean, is it “Chris P. Cream”
or “Chris P. Dream”? It makes a huge
difference. [In this case, the difference between donuts and dreams.]

As genealogists, we’re always saying the
best documentation is that which is created as close to the actual event that
generated the documentation, right? Not the documentation that was generated
three months after you digitally photographed a tombstone while eating a Krispy
Kreme donut. And don’t even get me started if you enlist someone else to read
those photographs that are three months old because you had to run up and get
some more of those tasty Krispy Kreme donuts. I mean, we’re already far from
the actual death and creation of the tombstone and now you’re gonna add another
person to the situation to help you transcribe those photos of tombstones?
Probably not a good idea. And notice that I said they’re transcribing the photos of the tombstones, not the
tombstones themselves.

So, I tried RestingSpot.com’s app this
past weekend on the 2 family graves that I have near me here in the Houston
area, and it worked like a charm. My Great-Aunt Anne, who was one of the brave women who volunteered for the Navy’s W.A.V.E.S. [Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service] and drove an ambulance in France during
World War II, has now been GPS’d. And being such a forward-thinking woman for
her time, I gotta think she got a big kick out of me capturing her location,
entering her vitals, taking a photo of her and her husband’s tombstone, and
uploading all of the data to RestingSpot.com’s website with my handy-dandy iPhone. And? Yes, I’d
already taken a photo of her tombstone previously, but it doesn’t hurt to go
and visit again, right? To make sure everything is as it should be, right? To
pay a visit to a woman who risked so much for her country? I’m not *that* busy.

And the second family member’s
tombstone that I visited this past weekend? The Jerk’s. You know, Claudius RoyTruitt, my Gran’s dad? According to my mom, he was a jerk. Don’t know why she
thought her grandfather was a jerk. But not knowing the “why” has never stopped
me before from finding out someone’s story. In fact, it’s quite the opposite
with me. And just in case my great-grandfather has any thoughts about him and
his tombstone “disappearing” before I can find out his story, I thought it best
to GPS the Jerk, too. He’s not going anywhere on my watch. [And, wow, the only
thing that’s been passed down about him is that he’s a jerk. How sad is that?] Now?
If anyone else in the family wants to visit the Jerk, well, now they can find
him easily.

Once you log onto the website, you can
add more information to each memorial. Such as:

Paying respects

Bio

Personality [For Claudius? Jerk.
Great-Aunt Anne? Courageous.]

Professional

Interests

Photos & Video [Now, a video about
Great-Aunt Anne? That would be fabulous!]

Friends & Family

There is also a map on the ancestor’s
page on RestingSpot.com marking the location of their tombstone, and directions
to it are just a click away. Want to share an ancestor’s resting spot? No problem with a
click you can share it by email with others.

Does it get any easier than this? Right
now, no. RestingSpot.com’s Smartphone app is truly a wonderful addition to the
genea-tech world. It combines simplicity and intuitiveness to make a
potentially frustrating ancestor visit to the cemetery an enjoyable experience allowing
us to write the family stories even quicker and more accurately while eating
Krispy Kremes, of course.

So go check RestingSpot.com out.
Download their app onto your Smartphone and give it a whirl. Go visit some
tombstones that you haven’t visited in a while. What are you waiting for? Go
GPS your ancestors’ tombstones.

[And? Turns out that the man who
requested the photo of Mr. Gressett’s tombstone is related to my college roommate.
You see, she’s from this itty bitty town in Texas and there were only 12 people
in her graduating class from a public school. So, I asked, and well, they’re
related. What are the odds, right? Genea-Karma.]

Note: While I was asked to review
their site and app (which are/were free), I received no compensation to do so from RestingSpot.com.
This is my honest and unbiased opinion. For more about my disclosure statement on Family Stories, click here.

Well, CM, You made a convert --- well that is, when I get a smart phone. My phone is a dumb tracphone, but i am hoping the genea-santa will notice this little comment!! Might even get a graving outfit to match --- i do like to be color coordinated.

Lucie, the app will not function properly on an iPod Touch or an iPad. Neither has true GPS functionality yet. As soon as they do, they'll be supported. We need to clear that up in the next description. Sorry about that.

I get such a kick out of your posts! They're always so much fun to read!This app sounds great! I'm on my way to their website right now. I've got a 'droid and I think I'm going to need this!I also visit my cemetaries often. I'm with you. I need to keep track of all my ancestors on my watch too! :-)Thanks for the great info and post! Cindy (Genealogy Circle)

Lynn~ I'm sure your husband will be very inpressed when he realizes you've downloaded this app on his smartphone. Maybe he'll go graving too. Or perhaps he'll buy you a smartphone. Either way, you win. ;)

Judy, Joan & Denise~ Graving outfits are all the rage. Perhaps I should make some Family Stories graving t-shirts for my Zazzle store. Hm...

Oh I wish I would've known this BEFORE my vacation!! I visited a tiny cemetery in Pa that had no info online. I somehow managed to find it but it was in a grove of trees away from the road with weeds and shrubs and everything possible. I took pictures of everything there but that app would've helped sooo much. (Also my blog has posts about photography techniques to help remember where everything is located... http://persingandbiedafamily.blogspot.com/)

Shades of the Departed

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About Me

As a genealogist, a family historian, a writer, and a blog
author, I've been blogging stories about my ancestors since 2009
on Family
Stories. Additionally, I've been having epic results
combining family history, genealogy, technology, research services, tutorials, and videos on my blog 4YourFamilyStory.com.

When I'm not blogging about dead people,
coaching others on how to use technology to find dead people, or researching
other people’s dead people, I can usually be found in an antique store
searching for letters, post cards, tickets, photos, books, etc. once
owned by people who are now dead.